diff --git a/pkgs/development/python-modules/word2vec/default.nix b/pkgs/development/python-modules/word2vec/default.nix
index 367c299a70c..1e448c37709 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/python-modules/word2vec/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/python-modules/word2vec/default.nix
@@ -1,14 +1,23 @@
 { stdenv
 , buildPythonPackage
 , fetchPypi
+, fetchzip
 , cython
 , numpy
 , scikitlearn
 , six
-, python
+, setuptools_scm
+, gcc
+, pytest
+, pytestcov
 , isPy27
 }:
-
+let
+  testData = fetchzip {
+    url = "http://mattmahoney.net/dc/text8.zip";
+    sha256 = "0w3l64bww9znmmvd9cqbfmh3dddnlrjicz43y5qq6fhi9cfqjfar";
+  };
+in
 buildPythonPackage rec {
   pname = "word2vec";
   version = "0.11.1";
@@ -19,17 +28,25 @@ buildPythonPackage rec {
     sha256 = "222d8ffb47f385c43eba45e3f308e605fc9736b2b7137d74979adf1a31e7c8b4";
   };
 
+  nativeBuildInputs = [ setuptools_scm gcc ];
+
   propagatedBuildInputs = [ cython numpy scikitlearn six ];
 
+  checkInputs = [ pytest pytestcov ];
+
+  # Checks require test data downloaded separately
+  # See project source Makefile:test-data rule for reference
   checkPhase = ''
-   cd word2vec/tests;
-    ${python.interpreter} test_word2vec.py
+    PATH=$PATH:$out/bin
+    mkdir data
+    head -c 100000 ${testData}/text8 > data/text8-small
+    pytest
   '';
 
   meta = with stdenv.lib; {
     description = "Tool for computing continuous distributed representations of words";
     homepage = "https://github.com/danielfrg/word2vec";
-    license     = licenses.asl20;
+    license = licenses.asl20;
     maintainers = with maintainers; [ NikolaMandic ];
   };